


Down the Rabbit Hole

by toesohnoes



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-16
Updated: 2007-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-30 05:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toesohnoes/pseuds/toesohnoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sylar decides that the way to keep Mohinder safe is to keep him in one place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down the Rabbit Hole

When Gabriel was eight, he had a pet bunny.

It was white and had a fluffy little tail – its eyes shone with a red alertness and intelligence that he wouldn't previously have thought that rabbits could possess. He called it Alice and took as good care of it as he could.

Alice was smart but she was curious too. She would escape from her hutch and go exploring when she could, constantly seeking out new lands and adventures. Gabriel had spent so much time chasing after her to protect her. Every night he'd lock the door of her hutch with a little padlock, just to be safe.

One night, he forgot the lock – her curiosity led her to escape.

He found her the following morning on the road, with blood and guts splattered and smeared across the tarmac. It had seemed pink rather than red, as he stood on the sidewalk with his mother and stared. Alice was dead, too smart for her own good.

When he was thirty, Sylar decided that Mohinder had much the same problem.

*

It didn't take a lot of work – Sylar almost wished that it had involved hard and physical labour, so that he could feel more proud of the end result.

He still thought it was impressive, when he stood back to admire it. It was a neat white room in a perfect square. He'd white-washed the walls and set a window of bullet-proof glass into the heavy door. In a way it was almost reminiscent of the cell he'd been locked in at Primatech.

He'd tried to make it more comfortable than that place. There was a carefully made bed in the corner, with pristine white pillows and a sky blue set of sheets. A desk, a lamp, endless amounts of paper and pens, a shelf of lovingly selected books.

The star feature of his new creation however was the impenetrable set of locks that sprawled over the front of the door. Sylar ran an admiring finger down the smooth metal on the locks: he'd constructed a perfect, fully-functional and inescapable cage.

Now he just had to go out to find its intended inhabitant.

*

Some people, Sylar mused, would view this as inhumane – capturing a fellow human being and locking him away wouldn't be considered as the sanest of actions.

They just didn't understand. Sylar was doing this for Mohinder's own protection. The scientist didn't know how to look after himself; he didn't know who to trust or even how to feed himself. When Sylar had lived under his roof as Zane, he'd had to constantly prompt Mohinder to remind him to step away from his research and towards the kitchen.

This was really for Mohinder's own good. He'd understand that, eventually.

Besides, Sylar reassured himself as he watched Mohinder walk up the street towards the door of his apartment block, if Mohinder stayed on the loose as Sylar's plans for presidency progressed, he would try to interfere. Interfering could only end with Mohinder's death, which Sylar refused to allow.

As Mohinder's dark head stayed lowered to fumble with his key in the lock, Sylar made his move. He stepped forward from the shadows he'd carefully lurked in; in true thriller movie style, he had a chloroform soaked cloth in his hand.

Mohinder's hair smelled of shampoo when Sylar stepped close enough behind him to place the cloth tight over his mouth and nose: he fell unconscious with almost no struggle at all. Easy.

*

When the banging and yelling started, it was a fairly clear indication that Mohinder had finally awoke.

Sylar sat in the kitchen of his apartment, slowly going over his plans: he had a detailed schedule of the future president's movements scattered over the desk top. The one problem with Petrelli was that it seemed like he spent every moment of his day with someone by his side. Sylar was beginning to suspect that he would have to hide in the bathroom if he wanted to catch the flying man alone.

Just as he was beginning to consider the plausibility of getting into that bathroom and waiting, he heard the sound of a drowsy body slamming into the door of Mohinder's room and an infuriated yell of his name.

He'd known, of course, that Mohinder wouldn't take kindly to this at first. When he'd first been given Alice, she'd kicked at him when he tried to place her in her hut at night. Her small claws would leave red scratch marks down his arms: once or twice she'd even drawn red blood in tiny droplets that would scab and decorate his skin for days.

Mohinder would probably like to draw blood too. Sylar placed his papers down on the table and stood up, the legs on his chair scraping along the tiled floor. The apartment was small, so it took just moments to reach the cell. He could see Mohinder through the square window, with a beautiful fire in his eyes despite the sedatives that Sylar had injected into his blood stream. Rage would try to fight anything off.

Sylar shook his head. "I won't let you out, Mohinder," he stated. He doubted if that surprised the man at all – it seemed to frustrate him, though, because Mohinder slammed his fist onto the door. It thudded painfully in a way that would rip skin and bruise knuckles. Sylar felt like sighing and scolding him. "This is for your own good. Trust me."

"My own _good_?" Mohinder snapped. The anger in his voice prompted an aroused tingle to burn over Sylar's skin – that, thankfully, had never happened when he'd been dealing with his pet rabbit. He wasn't quite that sick. "Sylar, I'm caged like an animal. How can that possibly be for my own good?"

"You couldn't understand," Sylar answered in seconds. Too small, too simple, too human. Mohinder would whole-heartedly embrace the ideals of freedom and love, without realising that those were the very things that could hurt him. "I can keep you safe – I can protect you."

Mohinder shook his head, a dirty scowl on his face. There was nothing but hatred in his eyes. "The only thing I need protecting from is you."

And maybe that hurt. Maybe that left behind the droplets of blood, the pain that stung and bled. Maybe he'd have scabs left behind tomorrow to remind him of those words and the distinct lack of trust between them.

The thing about scabs was that they healed – in no time at all, Mohinder's temporary victory would have faded to a long gone memory. Sylar smirked. "Didn't I say you wouldn't understand? You're safer in there."

"Sylar!" Mohinder yelled, with another slam of his hand against the door. Even with the sound muted by the thickness of the door, his yell seemed unbelievably loud. All that Alice had ever done was squeak almost inaudibly if he held her too tightly. "Sylar, let me out of here. Now!"

Trying to remain unaffected by the reaction – he'd known it would be negative, but he hadn't understood that it would be so _loud_ – Sylar turned away. He still had plans to make, plans that Mohinder would no longer be able to interrupt.

*

The locks made sliding thuds as he gradually undid them and slipped keys into padlocks. The process seemed to take forever, so the fact that Mohinder had remained silent throughout it was ominous: the poor man probably had some sort of plan to escape in place. Pitiful and pointless.

When the last lock was taken care of and the door swung open, he flicked his hand to fling Mohinder back against the wall before he could attempt anything stupid. The lamp that had been clutched in Mohinder's hands as a makeshift weapon smashed against the floor as his body thudded into the wall.

Sylar rolled his eyes and kept him there as he picked up the tray of food and walked into the room with it. Telekinetically he closed the door behind him, unlocked, even though with Mohinder pinned like this there was no chance of any movement, never mind escape.

Every evening he'd replenished the food in Alice's bowl – strange and hard pellets that had come in various muted colours and had tasted disgusting when he had tried them for himself. On the nights that he could find special treats, he'd leave them behind too. Carrot sticks or lettuce leaves, anything that he could feasibly imagine a rabbit wanting to eat. He hadn't even tried offering her Brussels sprouts when they'd had dozens in the house before Christmas: he'd known that Alice's tastes were too discerning for that.

He hadn't been able to work out what the right diet for Mohinder would be, but after two days of yelling and shouting pointlessly at the door he imagined that Mohinder had to be hungry enough for anything. Cartons of take-out food were arranged on the tray, along with a bottle of water and a glass to pour it into. Mohinder seemed too sophisticated to drink straight from the bottle.

"I brought you some food – you have to be hungry by now," he said, as he placed the tray down on the desk. He transferred the tray's contents onto the surface without looking at Mohinder's face. In all of his victims, he loved that expression of hate and fear. When it was reflected on Mohinder's face, he wanted to hide from it.

"How considerate of you," Mohinder responded, with a deadpan disinterest. Despite the tone of his voice, Sylar could hear the speeding thump of his heart and the way blood rushed through immobilised veins.

Sylar picked up the emptied tray and crossed the room to Mohinder – he wanted to hit him, wanted to cut him, wanted to cause unspeakable pain to the man that had been a sore spot in his mind ever since they'd met. When he raised his free hand, though, his fingers were as light as fairy dust over Mohinder's cheek.

He remembered nights spent in front of the television with Alice sitting in his lap like a housecat. He'd watch the grinning presenters of the game shows while his hands stroked repeatedly at the rabbit's back, sometimes tickling behind her ears where the fur was softest. Her nose would twitch constantly but she'd sit there for him. The repetitive strokes were hypnotic.

When he tried to mimic the movement on Mohinder's skin, the man jerked away like Sylar's fingers were on fire. He glared with dark eyes that saw all – Sylar remembered how soft Mohinder's gaze had once been towards him. He remembered what they looked like when they laughed and when they flirted and when Zane had taken him peacefully to bed. He knew the sounds Mohinder would make, quiet and keening, when you slowly brought him towards completion.

Now there was a dead space between them no matter how kind Sylar was to him, no matter how much he cared for him, no matter how much he put Mohinder's safety at the top of his priorities.

"Don't touch me," Mohinder hissed between clenched teeth.

Ungrateful brat.

Sylar's hand by Mohinder's cheek curled to a fist until his knuckles brushed over the cheekbone. He wanted to punch it. He wanted to leave a pretty mark on that skin, one that would hurt and ache for days. Most of all he wanted to mutilate the flawless face in front of him so that he would be the only one that would ever consider touching him.

As the murderous and impotent rage built and powered on inside him, he forced himself to pull his hand back. The only death he'd ever regretted inflicting was his mother's. He wouldn't add Mohinder to that limited list.

"Enjoy your meal," he muttered as he turned to stalk out of the room and lock the door behind him.

*

Every inch of his body seemed to hurt, as if a steamroller had reversed over him again and again. Dried blood and still-bleeding wounds and bruises that swelled his right eye enough that he couldn't see out of it. Peter Petrelli.

Peter fucking Petrelli.

The man was a nuisance, and a painful one at that. One of these days, Sylar felt sure he wasn't going to escape with his life. One of these days, these wounds would be fatal and he'd die there, bleeding out on the ground.

If that happened, he realised as he closed the door of his apartment behind him, Mohinder would be left here. In his square cell he would slowly starve to death; how long would it take for someone to find his body? The thought disturbed him more than it should have.

Shedding his jacket, he left it on the floor and walked straight to the door of Mohinder's cage. He should have gone to the bathroom, to clean his wounds and patch up the cuts and slashes that dotted across his skin using the first aid kit that lurked there, but this was something he needed to do first: he needed to soothe his spirit and calm his mind.

The locks on the door seemed over the top as he struggled with them now and by the time he had them dealt with and opened the door Mohinder had woken up from where he'd been fitfully dozing. Sylar's vision seemed to blur and he felt worryingly light-headed. It was nothing life-threatening, he knew that. If he was going to die, he'd be dead already – he knew that too. It didn't help him to feel any healthier.

Mohinder's eyes widened as he saw the blood that stained Sylar's skin. Sylar chuckled but the sound was painful in his throat. "Don't worry, Mohinder," he said as he stepped inside. The door clunked closed behind him. "It's my own."

If the concern lessened in Mohinder's eyes, Sylar didn't notice it. Instead the scientist got to his feet and stepped forward to draw him to sit down on the bed, brown eyes looking over him worriedly. "What happened?" he asked – he sounded horrified, like he had when he'd discovered Dale's corpse.

"Peter," Sylar answered. Pain scratched through every cell of his body, enough that it took him a few stretched moments to notice that Mohinder's hands were on him – they efficiently shed his shirt to look at the damage inflicted there. "Peter Petrelli."

"Peter did this?" Mohinder asked, looking up at him. Sylar nodded, glad to tarnish the idealised image that lurked in Mohinder's mind – Peter seemed to have picked up the same trick with the broken glass that Sylar had used against him. He'd only just escaped with his life, a fact which showed in every cut that had caught him.

Without asking permission, Mohinder stood up: he stood up and left the room without another word, rushing towards freedom and the second chance it offered him. The door was unlocked so he passed through it easily and Sylar didn't even try to stop him. He sat bleeding on the bed and watched Mohinder walk away, feeling almost glad. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe Mohinder was safer in the real world.

As Sylar dug his nails into the bed sheets and told himself not to chase after Mohinder and try to capture him again, the door was pushed open again. Mohinder entered the bland square that had been his prison for almost a week now – and he did it willingly.

Alice had never returned of her own choice.

In Mohinder's hands was the first aid kit that Sylar should have gone for immediately. It was scant and insufficient for the true extent of his injuries, but he couldn't go to a hospital unless he wanted to fall into the clutches of the FBI. While he had no doubts that he'd eventually escape from them if those idiots managed to track him down and arrest him, he'd rather not have to go through the trouble.

Mohinder's hands were gentler than any doctor's could be, regardless of any official training. Careful hands and cotton swabs soaked in antiseptic cleaned the cuts that plagued his body; as he watched Mohinder's single-minded work, he hardly noticed the stinging pain that accompanied it.

It was a slow job and should have felt like watching paint dry, but he didn't think he'd ever bore of watching Mohinder's hands on him or ever stop wondering in awe why Mohinder was still here, still helping, when Sylar would have let him walk free. He'd murdered the man's father – Mohinder should have been twisting the knife – or, to be accurate, the glass – that had hurt him.

Small shards were carefully plucked out and he did wince at that; the sudden intake of breath prompted a muttered apology from Mohinder. Sylar shook his head mutely, unsure how to respond. Silence would have to suffice.

When Mohinder's fingers smoothed down the last piece of medical gauze over his skin, Sylar felt a rush of disappointment. He wanted to scratch long and bleeding hole down his arms so that Mohinder would have to clean and repair those too – watching the contrast of their skin and of his violence with Mohinder's gentleness made his breath stop every time.

Mohinder was packing away the kit again when Sylar wet his lips and said, "Thank you."

Worried eyes looked up to him and away from their current task; thoughts and ideas swirled below the surface of Mohinder's gaze. If there was one power he'd kill a thousand men for – which was remarkable only for the effort it would take and not the brutality – it was telepathy. He longed to infiltrate Mohinder's mind and steal those thoughts. "You're welcome," Mohinder said, after a pause that seemed to span centuries. "But I have a favour to ask in return."

And those were the words that made Sylar's heart sink, as he knew what they'd be. He knew exactly what that request was and he still wasn't sure if he could grant it. Even knowing the dangers of keeping Mohinder here, where he could so easily be forgotten about and left to die, the idea of setting him free wasn't one that sat comfortably with him.

"Let me go," Mohinder asked. The three words were so soft, like an _I love you_ whispered in a lover's ear. If he closed his eyes, Sylar could perhaps imagine exactly that: he could imagine devotion in Mohinder's ever-changing gaze, and love in his touch and trust in his words.

With his eyes open, he was left in a reality where Mohinder hated and feared him. The erotic rush of power that came from provoking those emotions had long since faded. He was wearied now. "I can't just _let_ you go. That's not how this works," he retorted angrily.

Alice had never quietly appealed to his better nature – Sylar hadn't even known that such a thing existed within him. He found its existence uncalled for and annoying, a niggling voice at the back of his mind. Even as a child he'd hated Pinocchio.

He stood up, a simple movement that roared fire through his body, and he couldn't help but flinch. There was a dull want for Mohinder to stand with him and help to support him towards the door, but that didn't happen. Apparently the rejection of freedom was enough to lose him Mohinder's good graces.

He paused before he left. "I won't lock the door tonight," he stated.

If Mohinder was too stupid to figure out what he meant by that, then the man didn't deserve to escape.

*

The following morning, the first aid kit had been placed back on its shelf.

His jacket had been hung on the back of a chair.

The bed in the cell had been made, with neat edges and razor-sharp folds – it was perfectly done, if you disregarded the blood stains on it.

Mohinder was no where in sight, but there was a single note folded on the centre of the desk.

_Thank you_ , written in Mohinder's orderly hand.

Sylar crumpled the note and threw it into the wastepaper bin while trying to reassure himself that releasing Mohinder into the wild was a good thing – but at least Alice had never written him notes taunting him with what he was missing.

He reminded himself stubbornly that Mohinder was not a pet rabbit, designed to be protected and petted for all his life.

He reminded himself stubbornly that Mohinder deserved to be free.


End file.
